Share this story

git, created by Linus Torvalds to support the development of the Linux kernel, has won widespread praise for its powerful branching and merging support. Where CVS and Subversion once ruled the roost, git has become the version control system of choice for many projects and organizations.

Prior to today's announcement, CodePlex supported a version of Microsoft's TFS, which is a centralized version control system, and the open source Mercurial, which, like git, is a distributed system. Although Mercurial arguably has better tools available for Windows developers, git is the system that has won most mindshare, and the feature request had the second most votes of any on CodePlex's issue tracker. The only request with more votes was support for Subversion—and Microsoft fulfilled that request in 2008.

I use msysgit. It's functional, but to do certain things, like SSH authentication, I can't just use a regular Windows command prompt, I have to use the msysgit bash shell emulator. I'm not passionate about the Windows command prompt, but I use Windows as my development OS, and I hate to have to run a different shell just for Git CLI.

Mercurial, on the other hand, treats Windows like a first-class OS and the main CLI tools work fine in a regular Windows command prompt.

Of course, IntelliJ, and most IDEs handle git well, even on Windows (without any Bash shell weirdness). But sometimes I want to use the CLI.

I realize Microsoft wants to build goodwill with open source (or is that a condition of their penalty for breaking anti-competition laws) but if you haven't noticed, open source does a better job of taking care of open source.

Darkpill's apparent to do list: stamp out code.google.com and SourceForge. There can be only one!

(And, for what it's worth, Codeplex is typically a good place to look for open source tools for Windows, especially those that are by/for .Net developers. So it makes sense to keep putting those kinds of things there, even if you switch to git as a source control system.)

Perhaps you prefer CodePlex's issue tracker, or its use of simple Wiki markup for project homepages instead of GitHub's annoying gh-pages branch, or think that GitHub's use of Ruby on Rails jeopardizes the security of your projects.

On topic, I think it's really interesting and testament to the influence of open source development even for proprietary developers.

It wasn't meant to be an attack, just pointing out that the argument probably wouldn't get you far. I can see how it might seem that way. Honest though, share enough threads with folks and you notice the patterns. I'd never call darkpill a troll, he's not remotely...but I cannot recall a time in years when he's had anything positive to say about MS in any context. It's like clockwork. Even their open-source efforts draw sardonic comments. (See: this thread)

If you want a private source code repository and work item tracking, tfspreview and the VS 11 beta are pretty solid. The new SCRUM template simply kicks ass in TFS Preview and it's fully integrated with VS11.

Anyway, glad to see MS use git on CodePlex. There's a pile of good software on CodePlex and expanding the source control options is a good thing even if I don't have a need for that side of CodePlex.

OMG! Now codeplex will be infected with that GPL thing and Microsoft will never be able to get rid of it. Next thing you know, the commies will be knocking at the door. /sarcasm

Sorry, I just find it humorous that the company that was wholly against open source before would do something like this. I just wish Microsoft would stop being psychotic though. One week they are behind open source, the next week they are trying to burn it to the ground.

My own 2 cents here. I host some of my projects on github, because that makes them easy to find.

I don't have much confidence in Github's security (but then Sourceforge took about 4 years to convince me, then managed to destroy that confidence in a week). I don't care much though: I am the only dev, so any unexpected change would get noticed (in other words, I never pull).If I had anything that was sensitive though, I would clearly host it on my own iron. The only security you can trust is your own.

Security aside, I applaud M$'s initiative: Git is the best thing that happened to revision systems in the past 10 years, and M$ is smart to let its developpers embrace it. They have often embraced OSS solutions... when they found an economic advantage to it. However, in this case, it benefits the health of the Git ecosystem.

This is not your father's Microsoft. They want you to use Windows, sure, but as far as everything else, use what makes you happy. I can't speak for the company but I can speak for the Web Team that I'm on. We make open source. We run node, PHP, asp.net and more. Everything new we do is open and more and more old stuff is opening up. As for Codeplex, choice is good. If the shoe pinches, don't wear it.

Edit: I mean, I don't care if it's CodePlex or any other platform for hosting code, that's not the point. The point is that Microsoft is finally acknowleding that OSS is good, git is a great tool, and that it should adapt to at least some of its developers' needs. As long as this pushes support for git and modern VCS forward, I'm all for it.

No, actually. That was the entire point: they are not the same diff. Your preference for Github does not make Git == Github.

The difference *IS* the point.

Using The word Git is no different than Google. It's a verb practically. Do you say your using the Google search engine? Exactly. But the point is, why use CodePlex? What is the point?

Because people (like me, as an example) have never and will never use github, but have been happily using git for years. Git plays really, really well with ssh, so creating central github-like repositories is drop dead simple. There are a ton of people out there who don't primarily work on open source projects who have no interest in something like github. And if I were to work on an open source project with git, I'd appreciate having hosting options rather than be forced into the ONE TRUE hosting provider. Choice is good, no?

If anyone is looking to do their own centralized git hosting, check out gitolite (yes, yes, yes...the irony of it being hosted on github is not lost to me):

I've been using gitolite for years and it works really well and is very configurable. Great for managing many repositories with varying permissions. Also supports ad-hoc repositories created by users. Very good stuff.

Command line git on Windows is a bit frustrating to me. Mostly because I hate the state of SSH on Windows and don't want a separate environment for my git activities. If there was one present Microsoft could give me (pretty please!!!), it would be a standard implementation of SSH using typical unix standards for config/key file locations, binary naming, etc. PuTTY works, but it works ugly.

I currently use cygwin's git (which unfortunately lags a couple versions behind) or msysgit with PuTTY's plink to integrate with SSH and use my keys. It all works well once setup, but getting it all to play nice was a bit challenging initially, especially for developers in my group without prior SSH experience. Linux or OS X setup is comparatively a breeze.

If there was one present Microsoft could give me (pretty please!!!), it would be a standard implementation of SSH using typical unix standards for config/key file locations, binary naming, etc. PuTTY works, but it works ugly.

Oh yes please. Integrate an ssh server into windows Server products that supports proper domain based authentication (so your off box perms are retained in the remote shell).I know there are products which do that but dammit this is the sort of thing I expect baked into a server OS these days.